History of Denver

[1] In the summer of 1858 a group from Lawrence, Kansas, arrived and established Montana City on the banks of the South Platte River (modern-day Grant-Frontier Park).

The site faded quickly due to poor findings by miners and most of the settlers and some structures moved north to the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek and formed a new settlement named St.

The town, named for the gold mining settlement of Auraria, Georgia, was formed in response to the high cost of land in St. Charles and gave away lots to anyone willing to build and live there.

Offering daily service for "passengers, mail, freight, and gold," the Express reached Denver on a trail that trimmed westward travel time to as few as six days.

On June 6, 1861, Governor Steele issued a proclamation declaring the Territory of Jefferson disbanded and urging all employees and residents to abide by the laws governing the United States.

Churches, lacking permanent facilities, often held their services in public halls or saloons, and children attended pay schools led by teachers of questionable ability.

The flooding severely affected the low-lying Auraria, destroying the Rocky Mountain News building, the Methodist Church, City Hall, and numerous offices, warehouses, and outbuildings.

"[19] As a result, Evans, together with other local business leaders, partnered with East Coast investors to form a railroad company that would link Denver and the Colorado Territory with the national rail network.

The city's economy was gaining a more stable base rooted in railroads, wholesale trade, manufacturing, food processing, and servicing the growing agricultural and ranching hinterland.

From Denver's start as a gold mining town through its transformation into a supplier of goods and services, it had always been a place where miners, workers, and travelers could spend their hard earned money.

There were a range of bawdy houses, from the sumptuous quarters of renowned madams such as Mattie Silks and Jenny Rogers to the squalid "cribs" located a few blocks farther north along Market Street.

[27] Thomas Uzzel, leader of the Methodist People's Tabernacle, established a free dispensary, an employment bureau, a summer camp, night schools, and English language classes.

The Baptist minister Jim Goodheart, city chaplain and director of public welfare in 1918, set up an employment bureau and provided food and lodging for the homeless at the mission he ran.

Soon, in addition to the elite and a large middle class, Denver had a growing population of German, Italian, and Chinese laborers, soon followed by African-Americans and Spanish-surname workers.

Unprepared for this influx, the Denver Depression of 1893 unsettled political, social, and economic balances, laying the foundation for ethnic bigotry, such as the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the Red Scare, as well as corruption and crime.

[32] Agricultural distress, coupled with the withdrawal of foreign investors and the over-expansion of the silver mining industries, led stock prices to decline, banks to close, businesses to fail, and numerous farms to cease operation.

Because of the city's inability to take care of the jobless, some train companies began offering reduced or free fares for people wanting to travel from Denver.

In a backlash to the new emerging realities of the American demographic, many prohibitionists subscribed to the doctrine of "nativism" in which they endorsed the notion that America was made great as a result of its white Anglo-Saxon ancestry.

A major fire at the facility in 1957, as well as leakage from nuclear waste stored at the site between 1958 and 1968, resulted in the contamination of some parts of Denver, to varying degrees, with plutonium-239, a harmful radioactive substance with a half-life of 24,200 years.

These businesses brought jobs and money with them and began to influence the city displacing the wealthy entrepreneurs and pioneer families that had previously dominated political life.

[18] In 1947, J. Quigg Newton was elected mayor and began the process of modernizing the government, expanding public housing, setting up one of the nation's first civil rights commissions.

Long before the Civil Rights Acts were enacted, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Commission passed one of the earliest fair housing laws in the nation permitting Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Japanese-Americans, and Jews to move into neighborhoods previously denied to them.

Despite these laws, discrimination was still prevalent, but the work of the Newtons's Human Rights and Community Relations spared Denver some of the racial unrest that occurred in other cities in the post-war years.

In March 1969, a convention hosted by Rodolfo Gonzales's Crusade for Justice was held in Denver and the Plan Espiritual de Aztlán was adopted as a manifesto for the movement.

Colorado voters struck down ballot initiatives allocating public funds to pay for the high costs of the games, and they were subsequently moved to Innsbruck, Austria.

When the economic downturn happened in the mid-1980s, Peña convinced Denverites to reinvest billions in their city even though many critics complained that taking loans in the middle of a recession was foolish.

When it was initially built 3 miles (4.8 km) east of downtown it was in the middle of farmland, but as the decades passed the city began to surround it and Stapleton no longer had any room to expand.

Despite opening two years late and shuttering a much hyped automated baggage system, Denver International Airport is widely considered a success and has contributed significantly to economy of the region.

[72] Webb, who also won 44% of the white vote, reached out to the business community, promoting downtown economic development and major projects such as the new airport, Coors Field, and a new convention center.

As inventories emptied out and prices stabilized from speculation of earlier years, Colorado's climate and well educated labor force began to bring people and business back to the area.